Loyola Chicago fought back from a 15-point deficit with its season on the line to upset No. 11 Richmond, 75-67, in the opening round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament on Wednesday at PPG Paints Arena.
Richmond led 53-38 with 13:26 remaining, but the 14th-seeded Ramblers went on a 37-14 run to secure the victory.
“The reality is we’ve got some really good, talented guys on our team, and we’ve got some guys that believe in this program, believe in this place, believe in each other, believe in themselves,” Loyola coach Drew Valentine said.
“It’s all about the team. It’s all about the players. These are the guys that deserve all the credit for sticking with it all year and going out there and making plays when their team needed them the most.”
Loyola Chicago (9-23) advanced to play No. 6 Davidson (19-12) in the second round at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
Forward Joshua Ola-Joseph shot 7 of 8 from the field and scored a career-high 26 points with seven rebounds and four assists to lead the Ramblers.
“We game-planned pretty well, so I already know what to expect, the shots,” Ola-Joseph said. “So just going out there, being confident and making shots.”
Guard Kayde Dotson added 16 points, center Miles Rubin had 14, and guard Deywilk Tavarez scored 11.
Loyola was energized by Rubin’s dunk with 10:44 left to make it 53-45. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Ola-Joseph closed the deficit to 57-51.
Another dunk by Rubin made it 59-53 with 7:16 remaining. Guard Nic Anderson then added a pair of free throws and Tavarez drained a 3 to get Loyola within one at 59-58 with just under 5 minutes remaining.
Ola-Joseph’s jumper with 2:59 left gave Loyola its first lead at 64-63. After exchanging a series of free throws, Tavarz hit another clutch 3 with 1:22 left that put Loyola ahead 69-67.
Dotson’s layup with 35 seconds remaining and subsequent free throws from forward Xavier Amos and Ola-Joseph sealed the victory.
“I feel like in the second half, we started off with more energy,” Rubin said. “We moved faster; faster pace and everything. I fell like that’s what really changed it. I fell like they couldn’t compete with us if we upped their pace and energy, and that’s what we did. We came out with the W.”
Freshman guard Aiden Argabright had 12 points, and center Mike Walz, guard Will Johnston and guard Colin Tanner all had 10 points for Richmond (15-17), which ended its season on a five-game losing streak.
Loyola Chicago and Davidson have never met in the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Davidson won both regular-season meetings, 79-64 in January and 84-64 in February.
“It’s hard to beat a team three times,” Ola-Joseph said. “We’re just going to watch from our mistakes. Our coach has set up a pretty good game plan every game. So just executing the game plan and going out there confident.”